Digital Trends

Lots of random and interesting news this week. We'll try to scratch the surface on what promise to be stories that will have repercussions lasting well beyond the year. There were some minor audio issues during the recording, but please bear with me this week! It'll be corrected for next week.

·   Digital Trends Gaming Industry video series

·   Saitek Cyborg Keyboard hands on

·   Lapdawg hands on, Mac setup

·   High speed internet begins to really move, but at what cost?

Whoops! Forgot to mention some the tasty April Fools items during the show. Read our wrap up.

MS extends the like of XP slightly. Read between the lines…

·   Follow up on PWN to OWN competition - Vista falls! Linux rises to Gold Medal status!

·   Whoops! Now Adobe posts a Boo Boo-la (um, bad EULA)

·   Love the tablet PCs like me? PC Magazine has a review of the Axiotron Modbook. Perhaps the fact that the “Handwriting recognition is terrible” has something to do with Apple’s recent job posting.

·   MS’s Open Office XML (OOXML) gets ISO approval. Possible appeal coming soon. This is a HUGE deal in the geek world, but is it a big deal in the REAL world? I give some thoughts.

·   Creative Labs, one of the worst companies for product support in my personal experience, made one of the biggest PR mistakes I’ve ever seen. Response has been swift and unforgiving from the gamer community (petition here). Forget Creative. As of this posting, the furor continues on their own forums. Get an audio card from one of these companies instead:

·         C-Media 8738, 8768, 8770, 8778, 8788 (and cards using them, such as Sondigo Inferno, Audiotrak and Auzentech)
Aureal SQ2500 (and other cards of the era that used Aureal chps)
Philips "Edge" cards, like the Acoustic Edge
Via Envy-based cards, like Chaintech AV710
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Montego, Riviera, etc.
Hercules Fortissimo I, II, and III (from comments here)

·         Razer Barracuda AC-1, Asus XONAR (from comments here)

·   RIAA gets a court semi-victory. Boo! More interesting comments on Slashdot.

·   Direct X 11 will support ray tracing. This is huuuuge. Huge I say!

·   MP3s? Ptttfth! Try perfect reproductions at 1/1000^th the size. Science #$%#ing rocks!

·   Next Photoshop to be 64-bit! Yay! Vista 64 still blows chunks for drivers. (Mark another point for Apple!)

·   72% of the US plays video games. So much for a hobby…

·   Intel intros the Atom processors. Not a big deal yet, but watch for a swarm of devices by the end of the year.

·   AT&T going to let the iPhone have a little competition from Google, plans to be the first to adopt MS’s Surface technology.

·   Google lets you take your docs with you.

·   Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX hits the market. Wallets worldwide scream in fear.

·   EA charging for FPS guns in Battlefield: Bad Company? So, enjoy getting fragged before you spawn by Richy Rich!

·   I know I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s just such a funny, I mean, cruel idea.

·   “Strike me down and I shall become more powerful than… OMG you threw upon me!”

·   Ctrl+V… Academic integrity statement done!